journal until 1940. Academic Geographer Mason's long association with the RGS, including serving on its council and as a vice-president, was to prove pivotal to the next step in his career. The archives of Oxford University contain evidence that Geography was taught in several colleges since at least 1541. However, the subject was given low priority until, in 1871, the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) made an approach that resulted in a Readership being established in 1887. Twelve years later, in 1899, a School of Geography was founded and a diploma course was introduced, with continuing financial support from the RGS, yet still the subject was not deemed of sufficient academic merit to warrant study for its own sake. It was not until 1932 that an Honours program was introduced and a statutory Chair of Geography was established associated with a Fellowship at Hertford College. With support from the RGS, Mason was elected to the new chair, becoming the first statutory professor at the University of Oxford from 1 May 1932. His first task was to establish regulations for the new school which were published in 1932. The first Honour examinations were held the following year and by 1937 student numbers had reached 30 undergraduates. Mason's academic work, linked to the Himalayan Journal which he had founded in 1929, addressed the challenge of naming ranges in the Karakoram region (specifically, the Baltoro Muztagh). In 1940 Mason was contacted by Ian Fleming (who later wrote the famous James Bond stories) and Rear Admiral John Henry Godfrey about the preparation of reports on the geography of countries involved in military operations. These reports were the precursors of the Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series produced between 1941 and 1946. Mason directed a team of academics at Oxford who contributed around half of what was, at the time, one of the largest geographic projects ever attempted. Kenneth Mason retired from his chair at Oxford in 1953 but continued to write and give lectures on topics relating to the exploration of the Himalaya into his retirement. His final major work, Abode of Snow: A History of Himalayan Exploration And Mountaineering, was written shortly after the triumph of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition and presents a comprehensive history of Himalayan exploration up to the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Works Exploration of the Shaksgam Valley and Aghil